Interactive services, such as social media services, allow users to interact with the services and potentially other users of the services. Sometimes, these interactions involve allowing users to perform various writing tasks such as posting pictures or news articles, providing status updates, making or replying to comments about a user's posts, etc. Users access these services through devices running, for example, web browser applications, or applications specific to the interactive service.
When a user is interacting with a service, the user sometimes needs to obtain additional information to complete his or her writing task. For example, if a user is commenting on a news article, the user may wish to look up information related to that article. The user may similarly wish to correct the spelling and/or grammar of a user who previously commented, but may wish to confirm the correct spelling and/or grammar, or may wish to have the correct spelling and/or grammar automatically generated to ensure its correctness. Similarly, in the case of social media services, a user may wish to introduce themselves to another user, but may not know how to write the introduction.
Traditionally, users would go to other sources to obtain this information. For example, a user accessing an interactive media service though a web browser may go to another website to look up conversation starters or the correct spelling of a word. However, some interactive services earn more money based on the time users spend on the services' sites. For example, some services may charge a fee based on the time a user is on the service. Some services are free, but display advertisements to the users. For these services, when the user is not directly using the service, the user is not viewing the advertisements, potentially resulting in lost review for the interactive service. Accordingly, even if the user is on another website or service for assistance in performing a task on the interactive service, the interactive service is not earning revenue while the user is on the other website or service. Additionally, for users who access interactive sites via custom applications, it may be difficult to access another site to obtain information such as spelling and, depending on the application, the user may have to close the application to do so.
Some interactive services use content generated by one user to attract and retain other users. For example, an interactive service may show a comment written by a first user to a second user in hopes that the second user will respond to it, thus triggering yet another response back from the first user (or a third user). Often, due to the nature of social constructs, these user interactions take place over a relatively short period of activity. Otherwise, a topic may go “stale” and a user, who may have responded earlier, may forgo responding after the topic goes stale. When a user, such as the second user in the example above, would like to comment on another user's post or comment, but has to leave the interactive service to research information to complete their comment, delay is introduced. Further, during that delay period, the first user may become distracted and be less inclined to respond to the second user. Further, the second user, while off the service, may become distracted and not return to the interactive service, resulting in the comment never being posted. Similarly, if a user has to interrupt a half-performed task, such as a half-written post, to look up information on another system, the user may choose to cancel the task completely, preventing, for example, the post from being made available for other users to comment on.